October Goals

September came in slow but went out fast.   I only gave myself a few goals because I knew I had some really time sensitive projects that were also time consuming.  So let's see how I did -

1. Blogging More - Well I drew out my posts on the retreat and if you count this one will make 7 which matches the last couple of months.  I will say goal met -but I think I'm really stretching it.
2. Vintage Kitchen - Do the last stitchery - Complete - Goal Met.

3. Finish SNR Guild workshop project that I will be teaching in October.  - Complete - Goal Met. 

4. Bears -  :) Happy Dance.  Goal Met.  I have it traced on the vinyl, all of one is traced on the fusible and fused on the appropriate colors.  Cut out and started to fuse together.  

5. Work on things to sell at the craft fair - Goal Met.  I am adding to the collection of the little dolls and have even already sold 2.  

These are the two sets I've sold.  

September was pretty good.  

October Goals: 

1. Blog More Often

2. Continue with Craft Fair Items to sell. 

3. Make Progress on Bear.  Finish first one and start on 2nd. 

4. Mystery Monday if not cancelled and I can go -  complete project. 

5. Complete top of Halloween Wall hanging from SNR Table Runner. 

I think I better leave it small so I can stay focused again. 

Have a Blessed Day!

Lynn 

Retreat Wrap Up

So Saturday started at 4:45 or so and we were off and having a groggy but fun time being the only ones that were in the sewing room at time in the morning.  We sewed (or traced  ha ha ) until about 7 when we headed to the buffet

They have a very nice buffet and I've eaten there before (that's where this picture came from) but on this morning - unknown to us, they had 6 tour buses and 200 people they were trying to get thru there and on their way.  Wow the place was packed.  So we got our table and took turns getting in line. This is where the funny comes in.  I know other countries are not always bothered by closeness, but I am.  I like to have my invisible bubble of  6-12 inches.  I give others space, because I want space.  Anyway... I had a man standing behind me and I'm telling my friend Barbara oh no here we go again, because I just had someone get really close to me in the line checking in the day before.  Well he is getting closer and closer and finally he's actually touching my back he is so close.  And even though I moved and shrugged he just kept it up.  I was extremely happy when we got to the actual buffet so I could literally get him off my back.  *pun intended*   :)  

Okay so we got thru that - whew and headed back up  - I did more tracing  - 

Then it was time for lunch.  I didn't get a picture of the spread they had for us again, but it was huge.  Pot Roast, Chicken, Salad, Cooked Vegetables, Rolls and triple layer Chocolate Cake.  Wow.  

I really tried to not over do especially after Friday night. 

Back to I at this point was to the cutting and fusing of things on to the appropriate colors of fabric.  And did that until dinner time.  Did I mention that we ate alot.  :)  

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant in the casino.  

Oh the dishes that were calling me - Chicken Parmesan, Ravioli, ....., but I was really wanting to keep it low level.  So I had soup, salad and 2 bread sticks.  They had Italian Wedding soup - one of my favs.  :)

Okay Sunday Morning I got up and was down there by 4 am.  I was ready to start fusing my pieces together and tried to do it with out tracing the placement on vinyl but that didn't work so I started tracing on the vinyl before breakfast - which they set up the buffet for us. 

There were pastries, mini muffins (yes I grabbed a mini bear claw later)  eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage and fruit. 

But I again was trying to be controlled after not feeling well Saturday morning. 

 So after breakfast I finished tracing the vinyl placement overlay and then finally got to start fusing some of the bear together during the final couple of hours before we had to pack up and head out.  

The pattern is written a little different than I am used to so that took a little time figuring out, but I think from here it should flow pretty quickly.  I calculated the time I spent on this and it's roughly 18-20 hours not including the time spent picking out fabric. 

So that pretty much wraps up the retreat  - it was so fun but as I said before I was so tired when I was done.  :)  

So before I end here's a couple pictures of my friends that I was sewing with.  

Annette

Linda and Katie

Ann and daughter Terri

I didn't get a picture of Vicki, Cheryl, Aggie or Barbara my early partners in crime - but I will.  :)  

All in all it was productive and I am so happy I went.  

Blessings, 

Lynn 

Eating and Sewing

I'm not ready to do the Paul Harvey "And now the rest of the story", but I'll give you more of it. Some of the younger readers won't get that reference but you can google it.
I am not sure why we as sewers think we need to eat so much - but when you go to these retreats that is all you do is "Eat and Sew - Eat and Sew".   There are snacks everywhere, cookies, pretzels, candy, Chocolate.   Then we get meals, and they do not skimp on the meals.  I was so over stuffed Friday night that I really was not feeling too well on Saturday morning.  I will say however that there were 4 or 5 of us that weren't feeling well so I don't know if we all over ate of there was something else going on, but it passed so I'll go with the overeating thing.  :)

Friday we were on on our own for breakfast.  So I made hubby and I a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich.  Then lunch was provided by the retreat.  We had a deli buffet table.

All kinds of sliced meats, bread, and fruit and ahmmm  - Cheesecake,   Oh ya it was really good.  There was also coffee, Iced Tea and Ice Water.   Yum.

That was served at 11;30 or noon and then we were back to our sewing tables.   I say that because in reality I never got my sewing machine out not even once.  I did not take one stitch, by hand or machine all weekend.  How can that be a sewing retreat?   Well it's all part of getting part of what will be a quilt done.
I need and needed to trace all of the pieces of my bear applique onto the fusible,

 I normally use soft fuse, however it is on back order at the local quilt store so I bought some steam a seam lite.  This is the product that I used to always use, but after you get used to soft fuse it feels so heavy.  So for this weekend I used up scraps of the soft fuse that I had and was able to get most of what I did except a couple of larger pieces out of my scraps.

Then it was time for dinner.  Did I mention we ate a lot.  :)  We were on our own for dinner, so we went to the cafe in the casino.  One of our group, my friend and table partner Vicki had just had a skin graph in her mouth a week earlier and was still on soft foods, so we wanted to go somewhere she could get a baked potato or mashed.  We ended up going to the Cafe in the casino. I decided that I wanted the Chicken Penne Primivera and then 3 others did too.  Vicki had her potato, Aggie had a fish sandwich and Linda had something else too.

I don't know if you can tell but it was huge.  So I'm eating along,  I have had about 6 bites or more and I'm asking everyone - do you have chicken in yours?  I can't find the chicken.  No they couldn't find the chicken.  So we ask the waiter - sure enough they had forgotten the chicken.  So it took forever, but they brought each of us a small plate of grilled chicken which looked like a full chicken breast half - wow.  All of it was so yummy but it was a lot of food- no I didn't finish it but still ate too much.  Then 3 people ordered Ice cream cake.  It was huge (sorry no picture) so then they wanted the rest of us to help eat that.  Chocolate Graham crust, cookie n cream ice cream with caramel ribbons through.  I only had 3 bites I was stuffed.

So then we went back up and sewed some more.  People slowly started heading out and up to bed or out to do a little gambling in the casino.  Vicki and I stayed for a while, Barbara's birthday was on Saturday and Linda went to the store to get her some balloons and stuff so we stayed in the sewing room until she got back.  We headed up to bed around 9:30.

I worked at winding down - because and here's the crazy fun part of this retreat - I knew we were getting up at 4 am to go sew some more.  Yup it's crazy.
At 4:03 the next morning I get a text -  "R U up"  I respond - "I am now - See ya soon"  :)  It took me a little longer than I wanted to get ready, but after showering and dressing, I got there at 4:45.

Ready to start another day.  :)

Saturday will have more food   - and I wish I had more pictures of it, but I'll share that in the next post.

Blessings,
Lynn

Dog Tired

Well I don't think even dog tired explains how tired I am right now.  We,  me a 4 other friends,  got up and were in the sewing room by 4am each morning and would sew until 9:30 one night and 8:30 the next.  But happy I am.
I wanted to blog each day, but trying to blog from your smart phone is not an easy task - throw in being so tired - well you all just had to wait.  :)

I got lots done, however it will be hard to see the progress unless you have done a complicated applique before.  There's a zillion pieces and it's just very time consuming.  I have roughly figured the amount of time that we were in the sewing room, less meals and chatting with other sewers - I roughly spent 18-22 hours working on my bear applique.

Day one we got there at 9 am  - Sewed for awhile and then I needed to go down and check in for my room.  picked the wrong time ---

but I was already there so decided to wait.  I had some guy so close to the back of me in line, he was almost touching me - I hate that so much.  I like a 6-10 inch bubble.  It was so bad, I almost turned around and asked him to stop - but I didn't want to make a scene.  :)  rrrrrr.   Oh well I got my room and then back to the sewing room.

That's it for now - so stay tuned - I'll give you little bits more as I go.

Blessings - Lynn

Blogging

It would be really bad if the only goal I don't meet this month, especially since I only had about 5 goals, was that I didn't blog enough.  I'm not sure what happens - that's a lie I do know, I forget to take pictures and then I think I can't blog right now cause I don't have a picture and then another day and another day and another day goes by.   So I may try to post something every day for the last few days of the month to keep up with my "Blog More"  goal.  Next month I may have to put a "Blog More Often" goal in there.  LOL.

Okay so what have I been up to.  Guild Meetings - Both guilds have started back up for the season and so at one I presented my finished wool felt project and collected sign-up for the class I'll be teaching in October.

I've also spent quite a bit of time writing the pattern, and instructions and making freezer paper templates for the class.

For the other guild I am in charge of refreshments, so I had a leadership meeting to go to and then my monthly coordination of the potluck lunch we always have.  

Here's a picture of the last Vintage Kitchen Stitchery that I told you I would show later.  It's not the best picture but it's a picture.  

And now the most time consuming efforts of the month - my "Dolls in a Bag" that I'm doing for the craft fair.  I've been doing blankets, quilts, pillows, pillow cases, bags and little outfits.  I have already sold one to a lady and will be delivering this weekend at the retreat.  Here are the two finished bags that she can choose from. 

Each bag contains:  Bag, Blanket, Quilt, Pillow w/ Pillow case., Doll, Nightie w/ Bonnet, and Jumpsuit w/ Bonnet.   Fun to make but the outfits are time consuming.  

Okay and now - the Retreat.  It's this weekend and my main focus is/ will be the bears.  I want to get them traced on fusible and ironed onto the background.  And considering that I'm doing two - it will probably take all weekend and then some.  I am taking the doll stuff and a fall wall hanging to work on - but I don't want to get too side tracked with it and not get the bears done.   And since I'm going to try to blog each day - you'll know how well I do.  :)  

Other than sewing I have been walking with my husband and going to the lake and swimming, going to lunch and playing cards with friends, and visiting with my crafty neighbor.  

Okay that's it for now - Have a Blessed day! 

Lynn 

Time Warp

Yes I was abducted and time has flown by.  Well at least that's what it feels like.  And now we know why I have to keep putting "Blog More" on my goals list.  I really do think of it daily, then think oh I don't have time right now, or I don't have enough info to share.  But then too much time passes and I feel like I have too much to share.  And so the wheel goes around.

So in my last post, I listed my goals for the month, which were limited because of my goal to focus ton two things.  The infamous "Bears" and getting things ready for a local craft fair.  Baazar's and Craft Fairs are something my Mom did and I said I would never do.  Yup I'm giving it a try.   But before I get into all that,, I'll try to catch you up on what I've been up to.

My hubby and I are trying to get back into our walking.  We like to walk 3 miles a day, on the days I don't go somewhere for sewing.  So 3-4 days a week.  But we also like to swim at the lake too so we have been doing a little of both.  The 2nd to last time we went there was a school of blue gil babies swimming around us nibbling on our fingers.  Fun.

 Then last time we went it was just a beautiful day we got in a little cove by our selves - it was great.

On the Saturday of the holiday weekend, I went with a couple of my sewing friends to a neighboring town that is about an hour and half away and we went to a quilt shop and had lunch out and made a girls trip day out of it.   That was fun.  I bought some really cute fabric that has sheep on it I'm going to make a box pouch for my Sister out of it.  We raised sheep when we were growing up and so cartoon sheep just seem to be a fun thing between us.

Here was a little Christmas Tree they had - Barbara got the pattern for it.

Also,  I was working very hard to get my wool felt project done for the first SNR guild meeting.  I designed a little wool felt wall hanging that I will be teaching at the October workshop, so I needed to get it ready so I could present it for sign-ups.

I will be working with the local quilt shop to make kits for this, so I still need to finish up the instructions.

I have finished the 9th and final stitchery block for the Vintage Kitchen from Jenny of Elefantz.  So now I can work on putting the little quilt together.   I show the picture of that later.

The Bears - I finally have a pattern that I feel I can use to make the bears the way I want to.  It only has one bear but I am going to do one in reverse next to it so there are two.   I have a retreat at the end of the month and I am taking it to work on.  I'm really hoping to get it all traced and fused on to the background by the end of October, so if I could get it traced and fused on the various materials at the retreat I'll be very happy.  :)

Now the craft fair - I have probably a dozen things I want to sell, but only have had about 6 weeks to prepare so I've been a little scrambled.  Work on this no this - no this.  Finally I had to sit myself down and say "Finish all of this one thing, so you'll at least have one thing to sell.".  Nice pep talk huh?  So right now I working on a thing my Mom used to make called "Dolls in a Bag".  It's a homemade miniature tote bag, with a mini doll, extra clothing, a blanket a quilt an a pillow with pillow case.  So I have about 10 bags made  18 or so pillows  10 ish pillow cases,  a dozen blankets and  fleece blankets.  So right now I focusing on finishing the extra clothing.  Once I made myself sit down and do it, it wasn't so bad.  :)    So when I get a complete set made I'll share pictures.

Oh and in the evening after finishing my Vintage Kitchen Stitchery, I started stitching on my wool Bethlehem and have finished the top of it.

So that's what I've been up to and where I've been, while I've been so quiet and mia.

Hope you have a wonderful Blessed day.
Lynn

September Goals

Well August was kinda a bust in some ways - I did not get all the things done that I wanted to and as I stated in my other poster here- the retreat was not as productive as I had anticipated. I took about 5 projects to the retreat knowing that I wouldn't get them all done,  but thought I would get maybe 2 1/2 done. Nope that didn't happen . If you want to read about it you can click the link above.  But it is September and since it's already the 3rd and I haven't blogged, wrapped up August or listed September goals I am starting out of the gate behind.  I have had a lot going on and I do want to share some of that but I'll save it for another post.  So with no further ado - August wrap up.

1. Blog more - Well I tied with July so I guess that's ok - E for Effort
2. Mystery Monday - Complete it.   A+  Done and using alot.  I've always wanted to make one of these and let it intimidate me so Now I'm happy I did it.  :)

3. Woodsy Quilt - Do a new Block and or Redo Bears - Well No Progress but E for Effort.  I found a pattern that will work perfect for the center Bear Block and I am going to alter it so that there are two bears instead of one.  So I did some work on it all - I just didn't do any work on an actual block.
4. Wool project "Bethlehem" - Finish .... No Progress at all.
5.   Finish quilting the Sea Turtles and then start on Bee Hive Baby.  1/2 done.  I finished the turtles and then took the Bee Hive Baby to the retreat, however as you can read in my other posts, I didn't finish anything at the retreat.  :)  so only 1/2 done.
Here are the Sea Turtles -

6. Embroidery - Vintage Kitchen - Done.  I was able to finish this on our little trip we took at the first of the month.  Yay!

7.  Piecing Project - Chocolate Stars - Finish top - Success finally.

8.  Charity -   Nothing new done.
9. Boutique -  Dolls in a Bag - A+ -   And probably a big reason why some other stuff didn't get done.  :). Also I went helped out for a day at our local quilt shop.  They had a bunch of stuff dropped off and donated to them so they had a give away day.  At the end of the day I volunteered to drop the remaining stuff off at the local senior center and found out that they are having a craft fair at the end of October.  So now instead of gearing this stuff up for the February quilt show boutique - I am going to enter the craft fair - see what I can sell - and then replenish for the boutique.  Here's a peek at some stuff I'm working on.

I have more on this later but I've been making these little pillows and blankets and they will go into the little bags that are above.  :) 

10.  APQ - UFO Buster #2.  It was my wool crazy and ark crazy projects - No Progress.
11.  New projects - Start my challenge quilt for the quilt show.   Goal Met -

It's not sewn together I want to finish the hand stitching on the center wool applique first.   But I definitely got a good start on it. 

12.  New Project - Start and get most of the SNR Guild project that I'll be teaching in October done so I can show it at the September business meeting.  - Goal Met!   Pictures on this later!  

I have the pattern drawn, 2/3 of the directions written and 1/2 of the project stitched. 

13.  Complete the rest of the Row by Row that I was going to use for the bench pillow.   No Progress. 

Okay so here's the Tally for the month.   5 Goals met,   1 - 1/2 met 1/2 not,  2 E for Effort and 4 not met.   So 7 1/2 to 4 1/2  - the scale is slightly leaning towards the met side  -- ha ha  :)  

Okay now for September

1. Keep on with Blogging more. 

2. Embroidery - The last block for Vintage Kitchen.  Then I can work on assembling it. 

3.  Finish the SNR Workshop project.  - I will post pictures of this in a later post.  It is a small wall hanging that is done in wool felt. 

4.  The Bears.  Using the pattern pictured above I am going to do one the way it's pictured and one reversed so that there are two bears.  I would like to have this drawn out on a vinyl over lay and *extra credit * if I can get it traced out on the fusible. 

5.  Work on projects to sell at the craft fair.  

It seems like a short list - but knowing how much time each of these things are going to take along with the fact that both of the guilds are starting back up this month and there will be extra time spent on that too, I think it's enough.  

I have a lot of things I normally like to incorporate into my monthly sewing - but if I get all this stuff done and want to do something else I probably need to do more on the bear block.   My sweet Sister has been waiting so so long (maybe close to 3 years) for this quilt - I really want to give it more attention. 

I will keep you posted as I work on things this month and see how good I can be at staying focused. With both guilds starting up I know there will be new projects and as much as I say I don't want to start new things - I get sucked in.  :)  

Have a Blessed day! 

Lynn 

A Finish - About time

So I finally finished the top that I thought I would have done Friday of retreat, maybe mid Saturday at the latest.  Ya well as you saw in my last post - that didn't happen.

It's really hard to see the detail in the over all picture but the tone is more of a celery or sage green and then the pink. I have so much lined up I won't be quilting this until closer to the beginning of the year but so happy to have it done to this point.  :) 

Thanks for stopping by - Blessings, Lynn   

August Retreat 2015

Quilting Queens of Laughlin 

For this retreat we were called the Quilting Queens.  :)   And quilting we did.  I did not make the progress I was hoping to - I think I was in denial of how long this one project was going to take me, but more on that later.
For this retreat as apposed to the retreat I went to in February, we were in a bigger room.  This room is the main Pavillon at the Tropicana Casino in Laughlin NV.  I've been to a couple of concerts here so that was kinda fun to see it in a different setting.

Here's a couple of pictures from Friday morning while everyone was setting up.

My station in this one here with the red pillow on the chair.  I'm so glad I brought it the chairs were a little low and even though the pillow was small, it helped a lot.  

Included in our retreat package was, Dinner on Friday, breakfast and dinner for Saturday and then Breakfast for Sunday.  I didn't take a picture of my plate at the breakfasts but here is Friday's dinner.  I'm sure this is someone else's plate - I would never eat that much.   ahem... clearing of the throat.  wink wink. 

Chicken, roast beef, salad, steamed veggies, mashed potatoes and gravy, and rolls with butter. 

There was also chocolate fudge cake for desert - yes I split a piece with my friend Judy.  

We did go back and sewed for a little while after dinner but not long.  I think all the prep for getting there and then setting up tired us out so we stopped sewing at around 7pm and went to our room.  

Nice and clean and comfortable.  

Judy and I had a great time together talking for a couple of hours like two school girls until finally we were like we need to stop and get some rest.  So at 9 pm we stopped talking and with in 10 seconds I think we were both out. We got up at 5:30 the next morning cleaned up and went down for the morning buffet that started at 7am.

I didn't get a picture of my plate but here's a picture of the wonderful fruit they had for us.  There was so much to choose from, oatmeal, cheese omelets, beans, eggs and chorizo, Fritata's, bacon, sausage, bagels, muffins, breakfast pizza, I don't know what all.  

I spent most of my day on Friday making strip sets to be used as sashing for the 12 blocks I had already completed. They also were being cut into smaller sections to be made into four patch corner stones around each block.  

Here is what I got completed Friday and finished up Saturday morning.  

It's a little hard to see in this picture so you'll have to click on it to enlarge, but the sashing is two colors.  A pink checked and the green. 

At 11 am on Saturday we broke and went downstairs to have lunch with my husband and his brother.  Frank whom  has been visiting for the last month. He was heading out on Sunday before I got  home so it was our farewell.  Four of my friends joined us so it was a very nice lunch. I met a new lady at my table her name is Barbara and was sitting next to my other friend Barbara and they both have the last initial of Z.  So they were the B.Z's. sitting next to each other for the retreat.  She is a friend of Melinda's that is part of our guild and will be joining the guild this year.  It was fun getting to know her.  So she and Melinda came with my Barbara Z. and my roomie for the weekend Judy.   

Then back upstairs to get at the sewing again.  

I brought 5 projects to work on, in case I was super speedy or if I got at a point and got stuck or if I was just bored with one and wanted to move on.  My hope was that after I got this top done - the next project I wanted to work on is this one. 

I have about 9 of the 12 blocks fused on their back grounds and probably 5 of those top stitched. So I was planning on top stitching them and and making some more blocks.  Nope that's didn't happen. 

So at around 4:30-5pm we broke for dinner, they had a taco bar for us.  Tortilla's, hard shells, two kinds of meat, rice, beans, salsa's cheese, sour cream, guacamole, you name it.  And yes again the chocolate fudge cake, however this time I didn't have any.  

Shortly after dinner Judy said she wanted to go play a few nickels and then go up to bed.  Her eyes were bugging her and she was tired.  I told her I would be quiet when I came up.  :)  So I kept working on the friendship stars.   I worked until 9 pm sewing and trimming 160  half square triangles. I got them all sewn and trimmed, whew. And made two of the friendship stars before I finally stopped.  I thought I better head up or wouldn't be worth anything on Sunday if I didn't.  

So I get upstairs and the TV was on a movie I really like so I watched some TV and munched on some corn nuts and then went to sleep.  

Sunday - Sunday (cue the music to Monday Monday....) - Off to the buffet again and then up to the sewing room.  We had until 2pm - again I had visions of grandeur of getting the top done. 

Cue the doom and gloom music - dunt dunt daaaaaaa

 Unfortunately - the top still looks like it does above.   Try as I might I just couldn't  get it done.  

I did however get 33 of the 40 friendship stars done - so I am really hoping that at tomorrows open sew at the shop I finish the remaining starts and then will finally have the top done.  

As for my other projects I wanted to get done.  Well they may end up on my goal list for one of the upcoming months.  But may be down the line a few months.  I already have some heavy goals for September and October so not sure they will get in there and then November we have a lot of family things going on, Our Son is getting married in Vegas the first part of the month. My Sister is coming to visit for a week the middle of the month. And our oldest Daughter and son in law, and grandaughter and great grand babies are going to try and make it at the end of the month for Thanksgiving.  So these other sewing projects may get pushed out a ways. 

Well I've spent long enough on this post  - hope you all have a wonderful day!  

Blessings, 

Lynn 

Challenge Quilt

We are having a quilt show next February and as far away as that sounds it will be here in no time. So I'm trying to get ahead of the ball so to speak.  We have what is called a "Challenge Quilt" where we are supposed to express "what does Red, White and Blue mean to you"?  Well I can't fit all that into a 36 x 36 quilt, so this quilt doesn't represent what it means to me but it does represent some Americana.

Here's what I'm working on.    This was my original center block, that is all wool on a cotton background.

However once I made my borders that I wanted to make, it did not look good at all.  The center was too golden against the cream.  So even though I had already fused this down and started to stitch it. I cut away from the background and placed it on a new background. 

Viola 

I like it much better.  

So now I am working on stitching down the center by  hand with a blanket stitch, and do some detail with embroidery - and then I will attach the borders.  They are just laid there for the picture.  I will sew around the stars as part of the quilting and not sure what I will do for quilting in the center yet.  

Yesterday I worked on some stuff to sell at the quilt show boutique and today I'm going to lunch and then playing cards with the girls.  

Hope you have a super Blessed Day. 

Lynn 

Pretty Little Things

The last couple of days have been especially fun.  We have had a guest teacher at the local quilt shop for the last couple of days.  Our shop owner used to have a shop in Lake Tahoe and this is her best friend from there.  Anyway she comes a few times a year to visit and always had new things to make.
On Friday we had 3 projects.  Microwave bowls, which I've been wanting to learn how to make forever!  

  
Next we made little business card holders.  With a decorative little button.

Then our last project for the day was a candle mat.  This was really fun for a couple of reasons.  I learned a new technique to overlap all the squares and we got to use some decorative stitches.

Then on Saturday - I had Free Motion Quilting class in the morning.  There were only 2 of us there so we got a little extra practice and instruction so that was good.  We practiced a feather design and a wacky triangle shape.  

Then after lunch we had another class from Bobbi.  This was a cut and fold project where we cut very carefully with an Exacto knife then folded part of the cut parts over.  Then we top stitched which serves at the quilting and then bound.  I am finishing the the last of the hand stitching of the binding.  

I want to make another -  but I would also like to think of a design of my own and try it.  Of course I will let you know if I do that.  

Today the guys are going golfing so I'll be working on something.  I'm not sure if I want to sandwich the baby quilt or if I want to start on my challenge quilt.  I'll figure it out I'm sure.  

Have a great day - Blessings, 

Lynn